A blog to share our interests of Food & Drink, Audio Entertainment and Exploring our City! Experience Sydney vicariously through our journal, or get out there and try them all for yourself! The world is your playground!

Category: 007. Audio Book Reviews

Where do
I begin? There’s so many thoughts and angles running through my mind when I was
listening to the audiobook, and same now as I attempt to write this audiobook
review, I honestly don’t know where to start. But starting from the beginning?
From the origin, would be a good start? Right? Hehehe.

So the
latest audiobook my wife and I have just finished has been Dan Brown’s
‘Origin’, the 5th and the most recent (released in 2017) instalment in
the Robert Langdon series (can you believe it! Dan has been writing the Langdon
series for over 17 years now!). So now I can say that I’m officially up-to-date
with all of Dan’s books.

Trying not to give away the entire book’s plot and ending, but let’s just say Dan’s fifth book also follows his nearly predictable story formula, that being someone dies (dies, dies, loses a hand, dies, dies) and Robert has 24 hours to solve an art/literary-centric problem, or something very bad would happen…..not just to him, or the city he happens to be in, but something bad would happen to all of mankind! The book format is so cookie-cutter predictable/replicable, that I wouldn’t be surprised if Dan has an excel spreadsheet template where every 3 years he sits down and inserts a new country, notable artist and secret society in his macros enabled workbook, and then it spits out a result! The bare bones/building blocks of his next multi-million dollar best seller!

Don’t
get me wrong, ‘Origin’ had us entertained for the entire 18 hours 10 mins
duration, but was it one of Dan’s better Robert Langdon efforts?

Ok,
first of all I’ll tell you all that I liked about the book, before discussing
the things that I didn’t like.

Like! It was thought-provoking – that is one enduring feature of Dan Brown’s writing, you can be confident that a lot of time has been invested in devising a unique and controversial/shocking grand idea! And that Dan (and his wife) had spent a lot of time researching all that is connected to the area of discussion, the location and the artist/artwork. And I imagine all readers greatly appreciate him for that. And to date, each of his ‘grand ideas’ has sent ripples through society, so much so that after the Da Vinci Code, the church had to publish a counter-claim book to refute all that Dan had claimed to be fact in a fictional novel. Each time it amazes me how he has this incredible way to weave in just enough truth among all of his own imaginations, so that the gullible might just believe, putting their faith into doubt. That’s some incredible power of influence one man has over the world’s population. And it’s obvious that ‘Origin’ has received just as much of Dan’s brain-power as his previous books, that the grand idea from ‘Origin’ might just be explosive and compelling enough to change some people’s minds/behaviours after reading the book.

Like! Dan’s ability to evolve with the times- I don’t think anyone could ever say that Dan is behind the times- although his main character is so caught up with things from the 15th Century. But Dan has shown through ‘Origin’ that his books and his fictional characters interact with the book’s present day, which deeply resembles the real present day, e.g. embracing smart phones, social media, AI, autonomous vehicles, and online conspiracists, all of which played a prominent role in the book. But not only has Dan kept up with the times, but is ahead of the curve, take Winston for an example (AI Smart Assistant) – Winston played an almost leading role in the book and he’s a computer! You might be thinking now, “So what?” AI Smart Assistants is nothing new, we interact with these things almost on a daily basis today. But remember, this book was released 2 years ago, and Dan probably started writing this novel 2-3 years before that, so he was imagining a highly intelligent Smart Assistant in 2014-15, you’d have to admit that he was ahead of the technology curve there!

Like! Transported virtually to another place – the last overwhelming positive of ‘Origin’ was Dan’s ability to take reader’s on a virtual visit of another notable location, this time to Spain! His ability to describe visuals in words is something remarkable, which transcends all other authors in the game today. From the opening chapters of the book I felt as if I was with Langdon at the feet of the giant spider at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and later I felt like I too was craning my head to see better in the merky darkness of the crypts within Sagrada Familia! And maybe it’s just me, but I’ve learnt much about Spain since listening to the book, afterwards I spent some time Googling if there was actually a Spanish Royal family and if the Palmarian Catholic Church really exists (BTW, they both exist and I’m surprised that Dan doesn’t get sued more often for defamation….. but I guess if he’s willing to make up rumours about Jesus, I guess everyone else below that is a much softer target). So yeah, I loved being transported half way around the world without leaving the comfort of my own home, and I’m actually surprised that no tour company has tried cashing in from Dan’s books, and has designed a guided tour package around the locations Robert Langdon has breezed through in the books thus far. Now that’s a business concept you can take to the bank!

However the dislikes that I have against the book, is just as long as the ‘likes’.

Dislike! Too many inconsequential characters and side stories – in my opinion, Dan introduces too many minor characters, for which he invests time and chapters to build up their back-story, and cuts away to these side stories too often, sacrificing the flow of the book. At times it felt like every third chapter (and there are 100 chapters or more?) cuts away to another inconsequential character, none of which adds any value to the overall story. In my opinion, this unnecessarily dragged out the book by at least a quarter, and it felt a little tough going at times?

Dislike! The lack of action, famous works of art, and deciphering symbols/artwork/literature – Dan’s books are known for being like a scavenger hunt for clues hidden in famous artwork and symbols, but in ‘Origin’ this element was missing, by and large. Aside from the need to crack a 47 character PIN, the book lacked the same level of deciphering we’d come to expect and enjoy. So from the usual mad dash, rushing from point to point, clue to clue, it felt more like dropping down to the convenience store for some milk, meaning that it was way too easy to crack this code and it wasn’t suspenseful at all! I mean it, at all!

Dislike! Unbelievable fiction in a fictional book – I know that if you’re writing a fictional novel, the author has a certain freedom to embellish and stretch what is considered believable, to suit the story – as hey, you want something a bit out there to help you escape from the reality of life! I get that. But there were 3 details or scenes in the book which I found too hard to believe (or it was just annoying!). The first was the fact that Edmond Kirsch (the source of all the book’s drama) was a self-made billionaire! This was hard to believe as by profession he was a computer scientist and futurist. At no time in the book did they mention anything he was able to discover and sell to the world which made him his wealth, but it only positions him as a well-known futurist. I’m sure other futurists in the profession would also like some of that fake cachet and cash Dan was liberally bestowing on young Edmond’s shoulders. The second unbelievable element was a particular scene, although small and not having any impact on the story, but it really annoyed me! This was when Langdon and Ambra were fleeing from the authorities and they had a plane to catch, in 8 minutes they had to run up a mile long grass hill – even in the book they voiced their disbelief that they could make it (considering Langdon was in tails and dress shoes, while Ambra was in a fitted dress and no doubt heels). But low and behold, the power of literary license to bend time and space, so the next time the book cuts back to Langdon and Ambra, they’ve made it to their rendezvous point never expressing any exhaustion or complaint that they’d run a mile up-hill on grass in inappropriate foot wear!? I’m calling BS here!!!! And the last unbelievable detail which was the power and authority given to Mónica Martín, Public Relation Coordinator for the palace. I work in a corporate environment and I’m quite familiar with job titles, if someone’s job title is a ‘Coordinator’, they haven’t progressed very far up the corporate ladder and should not have much authority (for goodness sake, she’s not even a PR Manager!). And in the book she was able to have the Commander of the Guardia Real (that’s like the top dog of the most elite security force in the land) arrested??? That’s like having the sous-chef of the Whitehouse, ordering the arrest of the President of the United States! Unlikely, right? It’s these details which made it hard to fully immerse myself into the book, as my BS radar kept going off, intruding into the story.

End verdict – although we enjoyed the book, and it had us metaphorically turning the pages, and we were left wondering “Who dunnit?” right to the very end…unfortunately after 5 books spanning 17 years, Dan hasn’t gotten better at this ‘story-telling thing’, and if I had to rank ‘Origin’ among his other 4 Langdon best sellers, unfortunately I’d put it last, behind the ‘Lost Symbol’ (Book 3 in the series). However if you’re a Dan Brown fan, and you’ll sleep better knowing that you’ve read all of Robert Langdon’s tweed-suited escapades, by all means appease your feelings of FOMO, as I was in the same position as you! But if you’ve never been into DB’s books before, then don’t start here, ‘Origin’ is an easy miss. If there was any saving grace, at least the narrator Paul Michael did another fantastic job as the voice of Langdon, if Tom Hanks was half as convincing as Paul Michael, the movie franchise would be in a much better state…. Ouch! Shots fired!

Not only Langdon can decipher patterns, this is my attempt to find patterns and break the code of Dan Brown’s literary formula! Keep reading on to see what I predict to be the structure to Dan’s 6th instalment in the Langdon series!

So reading into the pattern, the 6th book will be set in a modern Western city – Melbourne, Australia, with cuts to the Vatican City. Now that Dan is trying to explore more modern artists- my code deciphering skills say that the next featured artist will be Australia’s Pro Hart! The shadowy Secret Society which will be unmasked will be the evil ‘Brotherhood’ of the Companion of the Order of Australia, as they try to protect their own, the main puppet master (George Pell). The female lead will be the sister of one of Pell’s young victims, and the day-to-day villain will be Robert Richter – disgraced Pell barrister. Shameful guys, shameful. *headshake*.

Nah, my deciphering
is just tongue in cheek, no one would buy/read a book featuring these
clowns!

Oh wow! Note to self, avoid spoilers! Avoid Wikipedia! I’m glad I only visited ‘The Girl on the Train’ novel and movie Wikipedia pages after finishing the audiobook. As the Wikipedia pages literally give away the entire story from start to suspenseful finish in the plot summaries. Don’t you hate that? Especially when it’s a suspenseful-thriller with or without a twist at the end??? Hey hey? Did you like my use of the word ‘twist’ to hint at a potential twist or a “twist” at the end of the book?*Winks*.

So in my review of the
Audiobook, I’m going to try my best to avoid spoiling the story for you, but
I’m sure many many of you have already read the book and/or watched the movie
by now.

Okay, here goes, a super quick summary of ‘The Girl on the Train’ by Paula Hawkins. The book is set in the suburbs of London, where the main protagonist of the novel (Rachel Watson) catches a London-bound train into work each morning. At the same time, at the same set of signal lights, the train slows/stops and during this short interval most mornings Rachel spies out the train’s window on a young married couple out on their home’s back patio. Struggling with issues of depression and alcoholism, Rachel idealises this young couple’s lives, imagining their perfect relationship with each other, until one morning when Rachel sees something she ought not/didn’t want to see. The next day the wife (Megan Hipwell) is reported missing, and Rachel might be the only one who has vital knowledge to her disappearance. And the story/intrigue/suspense builds from there!

I hope my wife doesn’t mind
me disclosing this, but her pet hate is cringe-worthy situations, be that
people, shows, books etc. etc. So much so that if she finds something cringing
she’d avoid the real-life scenario, stop listening to a book, or stop watching
a show if her cringe monitor is set-off. And initially ‘The Girl on the Train’
set-off her “That’s so cringing” alarm bells. Yes, Rachel is pretty cringing.
So ‘The Girl on the Train’ soon became ‘Your book’, rather than ‘Our book’, and
she would listen to something else or do something else when I was spending alone
time with the girl on the train.

And this segues nicely to my discussion of the ‘flawed protagonist’. What do I mean by this? Okay, in most fictional novels most of the time (let’s call it 85% of the time), novelists construct a main character who is near perfect! Be that smarter than the average man/woman, possesses above average physical attributes, a strong sense of awareness and astuteness, maintains a healthy dose of confidence, and generally makes good, well-thought-through choices. As writer’s naturally project their best selves into their main character, as what author wants to spend the next 6-18 months inside the head of a flawed protagonist? However I believe what is a good measure of a good author, is their ability to go against the norm, and bring to life a troubled character, carefully juggling the character’s negative and more positive traits; so that the reader is torn between being constantly frustrated by the main character, while cheering them on at every opportunity! As Rachel really is the quintessential flawed protagonist, making many bad choices along the way, which eat away at her already shattered self-confidence and spirals her further into a funk. I found myself muttering many-a-times “Oh no, oh no, don’t do it Rachel!” and then the inevitable headshake from me when she does what she ought not do, getting herself embroiled deeper and deeper into the mess she’s found herself in. It was these sections of the book which my wife disliked, as they were so cringe-worthy. However Girl on the Train was so alluring, that my wife eventually came back, no matter how frustrating Rachel was as a protagonist.

And we’ve rarely done this before, but on Australia Day we just sat there on the lounge and binge-listened to the audiobook (we usually just listen to 15 mins before bed). But on this day we just wanted so badly to find out who? Why? Where? What? When? Considering it had taken me almost a month to reach the ¾ mark, but we utterly smashed out the final 4 hours of the book in a single epic sitting! The Girl on the Train is suspenseful, thrilling and will have you guessing all the way to the end; the audiobook is around 11 hours long, and even into the final 90 minutes we were still pretty clueless as to how the book might end!

So I now know why the book
and the movie were such successes, as it’s a thriller for the ages!

The only tiny critique I have
for the audiobook experience, was the inconsistencies with the Narrators. The
book is a first-person narrative following 3 different female characters, the
producers actually went to the effort and expense to use 3 different Narrators
(Claire Corbett, Louise Brealey, and India Fisher) to narrate the three parts-
which was a nice touch. And each narrator were suited perfectly to their
characters and it was their voice and their acting which brought each character
to life, giving them each a unique personality. However my one critique of the
experience was the inconsistency when characters crossed over into another narrator’s
sphere. If you’ve heard the audiobook, you’ll be nodding by now. This
inconsistency was most evident with Kamal, a psychiatrist in the novel. In
Megan’s interaction with him, Megan’s narrator gives Kamal an Eastern European
accent, giving him a thoughtful gentle cadence to his tone and character. But
when Rachel encounters him, the Narrator for Rachel gives him a broad British
accent, and lowers her voice to make him sound like an overweight rotund fellow!
It kind of ruined the mental image which I had developed for the characters of the
book. Surely they would have flagged this and considered re-recording those
segments of tapes in post-production? *Shrug*. But I’m nit-picking here.

In conclusion, awesome read! You’re left guessing all the way to the end of the book (as long as you don’t check-out Wikipedia), and no matter how flawed a character Rachel is, you’ll still get behind her!

For the audio book of ‘The
Girl on the Train’, click on the Audible link below:

And if you like The Girl on
the Train and would like to listen to other similar titles, Gone Girl by Gillian
Flynn is also a good one (the audiobook experience is very good and uses multiple
narrators). BTW, have you heard of the term ‘Unreliable narration’? Um,
whatever that means……. They say both ‘The Girl on the Train’ and ‘Gone Girl’
utilises this narration method, taking a swing in the dark (perhaps with or without
a heavy stone in hand) I’m thinking the term means when there are multiple
first person perspectives in a book, like as if they are diary entries. However
later on you find out that the diary entries weren’t entirely true which brings
into question everything else which proceeded it? Comment in the comment
section below, have I correctly understood the term ‘Unreliable narration’? But
in short, Gone Girl is also very very good, similar, and very good! To listen
to Gone Girl, click on the Audible link below:

I think Crazy Rich Asians is one
of those books which many aspiring writers wish they wrote, as it would have
been so much fun writing it, transporting yourself and immersing yourself into this
fictitious world of the uber rich! And in the process of living vicariously
through your fictional character, becoming extremely rich in the process!? As the
book becomes a global best-seller, movie rights being picked-up, and the movie
adaptation breaking all sorts of box office records!!? What an extraordinary
journey that would be!!?? And Kevin Kwan has joined this select few in turning
their casual scribbles into a global phenomenon. First there was J.K. Rowling
who managed to become a self-made billionaire, then Stephenie Meyer soon
followed, then it was E.L. James who had a spanking good time of it, and now
there is Kevin Kwan!!!?? But from all accounts, it sounds like Kevin Kwan was
already in the world of the uber rich before this book, as the story he told was
loosely based on his own childhood upbringing. Like, what the! There are really
people who are that ridiculously rich in real life, and it’s not just a figment
of someone’s imagination? CRAZY! RICH! ASIANS!

So after 6 months since we
first started the audio book (we started shortly after the movie was released)
I’ve finally finished listening to Kevin Kwan’s book, Crazy Rich Asians. And
here are my thoughts, but just before I do so, let me give you a super quick
and short synopsis (as I’m sure most of you have either read the book or seen
the film by now). So here goes, essentially the story surrounds an extremely
wealthy Singaporean family/clan, the book is written in the first person
perspective of 5 different characters, the 2 main characters being Rachel Chu
and Nicholas Young (Yes, that Nicholas Young of the ‘Young’ family). Rachel and
Nick reside in New York and they have been dating for several years, but Rachel
is blissfully unaware of Nick’s generational wealth and the life he was
accustomed to in Singapore where he originated. However the penny (or gold bullions)
start to drop for Rachel when they travel to Singapore for Nick’s best friend’s
wedding and she gradually learns of Nick’s family’s wealth and how affluent all
of Nick’s friends and associates are. The story follows Rachel’s discoveries,
Nick’s naivety, and his family’s response to having this ‘commoner’ intrude on
their exclusive world. And weave in some infidelity, ex-jilted lovers, scandal,
and old money Vs new money, racism, fashion, and excesses of the wealthy, and
you pretty much have Crazy Rich Asians!

To tell you the truth, I’m divided
in what I think about the book. On one hand, I enjoyed it as a fictional story;
it was satirical in nature; like the British Royals, but insert Asians here! So
the book has created much Asian pride among us Asians living in the West, as
this is a depiction of Asians which we’d like to hitch our wagon onto, i.e. being
seen as wealthy, powerful, and extravagant, beats the alternative perception of
Asians being cheap, subservient, and frugal (although that might be closer to
the truth). But on the other hand, the book was crude at times, a bit over the
top, and if you were ever one who was bullied by ‘Mean girls’, it could be
a difficult read as it can conjure up
some bad memories for people.

When my wife and I were listening
to the audio book, we went through patches where we were absolutely powering through
the book, but then we’d hit a bump in the road (it could’ve been a section of
the book, or just the stuff going on in our own lives) and we’d stop listening
for a few weeks or even months. And as we’d usually listen to the book just
before bed, there was this patch where I’d keep falling asleep, so my wife
continued on without me. And then one morning my wife told me that she didn’t
want to listen to it anymore! I was perplexed as I thought we were enjoying it,
and I wanted to listen to the whole trilogy, how could we achieve that if we gave
up on the first book? So that was that, Crazy Rich Asians lay unopened in the
cyber world on a virtual bookshelf for a number of weeks before I decided to
finish the book on my own.

So as I had mentioned, I had
kept falling asleep during the book and it had been a while so I had to track
back 4-5 chapters until I found the last spot I had clear recollection of; and
as I made my way forward to where we had left it I finally found the part which
turned my wife right off the book. Yeah, it harks back to the ‘Mean girls’
element of the book which I had touched on before, Kevin Kwan does do such a
great job of capturing the essence of Mean girls, that he made it a bit too
real? So when my wife and I had a chat about this, she told me that she “listens
to books for escapism, not to be reminded of reality”.

So yeah, the book perhaps isn’t
for everyone. However if you’re able to push past these segments of the book
and these themes don’t concern you, then by all means go right on ahead and
read/listen to Crazy Rich Asians, as it makes
for a scandalous indulgent read. My personal complaint was that it was annoyingly
difficult to work-out the kinship between the characters and who was whose
mother or aunt or just relation by marriage. What it probably needs is a family
tree diagram in an appendix section of the book explaining some of the
relationships (which the audio version does not have). And my second gripe
about the book, is the constant use of Chinese/Cantonese/Mandarin/local
dialects, which they don’t always translate back into English for the benefit
of the reader/listener. Again the book would probably benefit from a glossary of
slangs used within the book (which the audio version also does not have). Thus
to this day I still don’t know what ‘Ala-Mak’ means? Apologies if I’ve just sworn
at you or offended, I really don’t know the meaning of that saying!

Now that I’ve finished the
book, I was brave enough to read the Wikipedia post about the movie (I was
avoiding spoilers all of this time), and there are some differences from the
book and the movie. So if you’ve seen the film but haven’t read the book……Go
for it! As they’re different enough and I’m sure the book contains detail which
the movie just can’t cover in 2 hours. And vice versa, I’m interested to watch
the movie now, but I just have to get over my ‘First world problem’ of not
having a working DVD player. Haaha. And after giving it a bit of a rest, the
plan is to listen to the sequels (China Rich Girlfriend, and Rich People
Problems……Have to admit, those titles just doesn’t have the same ring to
them!).

So if you want to read more
about Crazy Rich Asians, the Wikipedia page for the book and film is quite
informative and detailed:

And the narrator, Lynn Chen
does a pretty good job of narrating the book, nailing all of the canto/mando/Malay/Hokkien
parts, she even has a pretty good singing voice. (Check that out at 9 min 14
seconds into chapter 54!)

Yeah, let me know what you
think of Crazy Rich Asians, do you prefer the book or the movie?